Localised Knowledge Creation

The initial role of the LEVERS Learning Venture is to identify one or more learning settings to run project-based learning in (e.g., primary, secondary, adult, non-formal, community) – an educational institution or organisation willing to participate in the co-design and delivery of the LEVERS project, and to collaborate and interact with other local initiatives that are undertaking LEVERS projects.

Furthermore, the central issue – a specific, local climate or environmental issue – must be identified. Extending the language of YPS, rather than “social justice science issue (SJSI)”, we will henceforth refer to this as the “social justice climate issue (SJCI)” Decision-making and the order of activities will vary depending on how the work of the Learning Venture has been framed:

• Option 1: start with a thematic focus, build a project around it (e.g. biodiversity loss)
• Option 2: start with an identified local challenge affecting potential participants, build a learning project around it (e.g. housing issues and urban heat islands) 
• Option 3: start with an umbrella focus and a target community, use participatory methods & systemic design to identify SJCI, build a learning project around it (e.g. climate action > narrowing down to air quality following community identification of the issue)

Once the target community and SJCI topic have been identified, to develop critical, justiceoriented localised project-based interventions, each LEVERS Learning Venture will identify local relevant experts to work together to co-design initial content to engage learners and to provide a knowledge base. We will henceforth refer to this group as a Knowledge Creation Team (KCT) as it may be a slightly wider group than a Learning Venture.

The KCT should be comprised of Learning Venture members, relevant local experts and community gatekeepers. It should represent diverse expertise and types of knowledge. This group will collaboratively analyse, envision, and design a shared practice to support the implementation of a LEVERS project in their community.

A KCT may include the following (non-exhaustive) list of stakeholder profiles:

• LEVERS partner + Learning Venture members • Researchers from any relevant disciplines – e.g. climate sciences, geography, environmental humanities, the arts, political science, law, economics, education, psychology etc. 
• Business and industry • Local government officials 
• Teachers and school leaders from all school levels (primary, secondary, adult)
• Community leaders, youth workers 
• Local social justice & inclusion experts e.g. NGOs/CSOs

The LEVERS partner should provide clear indication that participants in the KCT events will take part in the co-design of local climate action projects that their community can participate in and outline the planned learning contexts for these projects.

The KCT will work with the “big idea” or SJCI for their community, and using the Seven Insights for Climate Action (Section 3.1), concepts of systemic design (Section 3.2) and participatory methods (Section 3.3), co-design one or more projects or learning interventions that are:

• Relevant. It should be a personally meaningful project of significance to the KCT members and to specific communities of learners who will undertake them. 
• Pragmatic. The design needs to be responsive to a real situation, i.e. the SJCI. However, what is created through the project can be as conjectural, speculative or real as the participants decide (don’t rule out imaginative responses!) 
• Disruptive. The approach should strategically and generatively disrupt dominant assumptions in a justice-centred way (restorative, transformative, procedural). • Agentic. The approach should support individual and collective agency and action for world-building.

The projects should approach education as living a desired, just future. These four commitments (relevant, pragmatic, disruptive, agentic) are inspired by the CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN EDUCATION GRADUATE SEMINAR from the University of Washington (Bell, 2023).